Tough

I've never been the biggest, the strongest, or the fastest.  Thats why I think I didn't do well in main stream sports.  I always got crushed in football, never threw the fastest in baseball, and didn't place well in track.  But that is why I succeeded.

For my senior project here at Bedford High School, I decided that I was going to row a Marathon on an indoor rowing machine(an Erg).  I also realized that there is a national ranking for 13-18 year old athletes that row marathons and feeling ambitious I said "it can't be that hard, I'll try beating the national record".  Not really knowing much about marathons and not having any experience with marathon distance events I felt a bit in over my head.  That same feeling of fear also felt exciting because I knew that I was opening a door to something new.  What was going to be on the other side?

Knowing that I am not the biggest nor the strongest and not even the fastest person I know, I had to find something that I could be the best at.  I knew I had to be Tough.  Being tough, isn't something that anyone can give you, but it is something that you can earn.  If I wanted to set the national record for rowing a marathon I had to get Tough, real Tough.

My training plan became rather unorthodox after that revelation.  Before that my priority was to be as fit as possible but what I really needed to do was be tough so that I would never quit.  A fit person will work well while they are feeling good but when they get tired they will want to stop.  A tough fit person will continue on no matter what.

Mental toughness was my goal.  I started researching mental toughness and wanted to learn how I could attain it.  The thing I realized during my research though was that it is something you have to teach yourself.  It couldn't be taught to me by someone else.  At that point I started making the most progress.

During all of this I had an extremely small field of view, I was thinking in the short run.  I was thinking about how I could be mentally tough to finish my marathon but the big picture of what I was making possible was how this could roll over into my everyday life.  Being mentally tough would allow me to focus in and get my work done no matter how much I wanted to quite.  The want to quite while suffering on the Erg was the same as the want to stop doing homework or stop the task I am doing because there are easier things to do.  Without realizing it, I have created the most influential lesson I could ever teach myself.  I taught myself how to be tough.

From here every time something starts to suck, I think "I was tough enough to sit on an erg for 3 hours 7 minutes and 45 seconds in pain and agony to complete a goal, I can finish this" and then everything seems relatively easy.